Madhouse Wendesday: Crafts

There is an alchemy in life, a way of making the elements merge and bend to one's will, controlling as many variables as possible to facilitate a desirable outcome. It's an art I've attempted to master my entire life, but it's probably more accurate to say I've struggled to bend my mind around the way the Earth's elements moved and conjoined all around me before they slammed full-on into my senses. And I have done very poorly at it most of the time.

I used to observe my peers, moving so easily through these bands of energy and essence, completely unaware of the powers that swept over and through them, knowing that they would only feel the physical result of restlessness or emotion and never the source. Simply by existing so many of them fell into balance with these forces, whereas I always seemed to be an interruption, a stagnation, an error, disrupting a smooth and even flow of natural harmonies by living and drawing breath and having my own thoughts. It was then I first toyed with the notion that I was Wrong on every level and quite probably a cosmic oversight, a mistake in time and convergence. That feeling has never left me.

I sought balance through so many means--religion, self-deprivation and denial, more destructive forms of punishment--in an attempt to correct the unbalance my being was causing, but nothing changed the notion that I was a stubborn rock in a fast-moving river, with everything passing by effortlessly, singing a sweet song of wholeness. I was a stagnant, wretched thing, and this view was confirmed by the thousands of voices through the years telling me of my great ugliness and how I seemed more disease than blessing. The pain has piled up so greatly over the years that it is impossible for me to accept someone describing me in words that hint of beauty without looking for a hidden, sinister agenda.

If only I could be something, I'd whisper to myself in the night, after the ritual hours of self-flagellation and hatred had driven me to my bed, exhausted. If only I could open a door within me and unleash the full force of my intellect. It would shake this world apart.


I yearned for a mentor, someone who could look beyond the surface scars and imperfections and find something shining and golden within me, a pearl of irredeemable value. I would use my arts, my hours of reading, as a type of craft to extract from my poisoned essence the idea of Possibility that I wasn't completely tainted and still had something of value to give the world. But such a person never came along, though I had many false starts, and I understood that I would have to hone this skill alone with very little to guide me and no one to support me. I've been on that journey ever since.


I toyed with a new notion, a product of years of careful contemplation. Instead of observing the average person, the one who blissfully skims the surface of each day and rarely thinks beyond the moment, I sought out those like me...the ones who seemed perpetually out of balance and teetering on the edge of chaos. And I considered a new thought: we are composed of the same elements found in the earth and in space. There is nothing out there that we cannot find here on earth, building-block wise. The rearrangement of it all presents with infinite possibilities, but the substances are the same...atoms, electrons, core structures.

What if some of us have more of something than the other? What if we were born to draw forces to us, to disrupt the balance of universal fields of energy, disorganise the flow? What if, without even realising it or willfully attempting it, some of us throw bits of existence into disarray, maybe make the molecules spin unevenly or slam the protons together to make sparks?

Is that even possible? Suddenly I found myself in TS Elliot-land... do I dare disturb the universe? It made my confused existence a bit easier to grasp, that instead of being the cause of problems I was actually keeping my corner of existence from stagnating and becoming predictable.

And it occurred to me that such an existence is a sort of craft worth practicing. Those of us who have been pushed to the margins and forced to be observers see almost everything passing by...the big picture, as it were, and we can see how the "normal" people frantically attempt to carve a place for themselves in it and set down roots before the scene changes again.

I've met a few Universe Disrupters in my travels, the ones like me who seem to pull you in like bits of metal to a powerful magnet without even trying. I've met those who are completely comfortable with their role, those who have no idea why their lives are so chaotic, and those who resent being so blessed. I can offer no advice but to play the hand one is dealt and to continue practicing their craft for instability is also impetus for change. And we Disrupters thrive on newness because it's the one thing we can believe in, the notion that very little ever stays the same.

Crafting is an art, maybe even sorcery, maybe even an earth-based religion that seeks to find answers deep within instead of without. Even moving from one part of my house to another I can almost hear the fields snapping and arcing around me, reacting to the odd balance of elements within me, and it only serves to remind that I need more practice if I'm to understand how to be off-balance and not tip over. The goal is to maintain the unbalance as much as possible, to see the things no one else will, and to admit there may be more to the ebb and flow of sparks than the harnessing of them.